The Hindu Business Line : Network test gear sector to grow fast

Riding on the back of the current telecom boom in the country, the test & manufacturing (T&M) industry- that provides equipment for checking and analysing any network’s performance- is expected to show an annual growth rate of 100 per cent. Currently, this industry is worth Rs 1,000 crore in India.

Majority demand is coming from wireless telephony service providers as both existing and new players are increasingly seeing T&M spends not as an expenditure but as a necessary differentiator for ensuring better voice quality, reliable networks, and increased productivity, said Mr G.R Manohar Reddy, Managing Director of the Hyderabad based Aishwarya Telecom.

Telcos are now keen to spend about five per cent of their total network cost on T&M, according to a veteran telecom industry official.

The spend on T&M used to be as low as 0.1 per cent couple of years ago, the official said.

Telecom carriers purchase equipment such as spectrum analysers, network analysers, protocol analysers, optical spectrum analysers etc.

Another fear playing on the minds of mobile telephony players is the soon to be introduced mobile number portability service that will enable customers to change their mobile operators yet retain the same number, according to the official.

“It is not that existing mobile operators are deploying T&M technology for the first time; but yes, now they are taking additional interest to better their networks,” said Mr Venkatesh Valluri, President and Country General Manager, Agilent Technologies. (Agilent is the largest T&M equipment provider in the country).

Going forward, every circle in the country is expected to have at least three new telecom operators.

T&M companies not only supply equipment for new telecom operators but also provide them with ‘intelligence services’.

“We assist them on how much network should be deployed in a particular region. This is because the quality of services is directly related to the quality of measurement benchmarks that are in place,” said Mr Valluri.

Add to it the increasing demand for broadband (estimated at 20 million subscribers by the end of 2010) and influx of newer technologies like DSL, WLAN, WiMAX and Mobile 3G, a 100 per cent growth is certainly on the cards, said Mr Reddy.